‘The Americans’ producers on season 3: ‘It may be that our sense of bad is changing’

FX’s “The Americans” just completed a third season (here’s my finale review) that was as emotionally rich as the series has ever been, but that at times to my mind suffered from an over-abundance of problems for its KGB protagonists to deal with. When I got on the phone with showrunners Joel Field and Joe Weisberg, we talked about where they left things involving Paige, Martha, Stan, Nina, and, of course, Philip and Elizabeth, about why they don’t feel there’s too much going on, how much longer they see their story going, and a lot more.

(A couple of notes on the transcript. First, because I was talking to them on the phone for the first time in a while, I asked them at the start to identify which one was speaking so I didn’t mis-attribute a quote; this later turned into a running gag where Fields would be sure to make clear it was Weisberg who said something objectionable. Second, because text doesn’t always capture the tone of a conversation, this was a very friendly interview, even at the parts where we disagreed. Anytime where it seems like one of them is getting mad, assume it is in mock indignation.)

Let’s start with the cliffhanger. When you wrote that Paige was going to spill the beans to Pastor Tim, how much did you know about how that would play out next season?

Joel Fields: I think we knew. We would not have written that scene without knowing what we were going to do next season. Nor would John Landgraf probably have let us shoot that scene without us telling him what was going to happen. That was the first thing he said when we pitched it. We rarely pitch through these things with John on the phone, and for some reason, he was on the phone. We pitched that, and that was his first question: “What happens?” And of course, Joe and I had just taken a long walk hours before, so we had it in our head where it goes next season, so we said, “The reason we’re pitching it is we’re excited where it goes next season.”

Joe Weisberg: It’s interesting, we don’t have the immediate next couple of beats. That’s what we’re talking about in the writers room right now. What we have is almost the whole season’s worth of stories. But we’re struggling with what happens immediately after.

Exactly how worried should we be about Pastor Tim?

Joe Weisberg: People think we should answer that question. I think it’s fair to say that’s a question John Landgraf had as well.

Okay, so a question that maybe you can answer. Paige knows, Martha knows, and now Pastor Tim knows something. How many people can be plausibly brought into the circle of trust before Gabriel or Claudia or someone else puts their foot down and says “enough”?

Joe Weisberg: Four!

Joel Fields: This is Joel. Joe just completely pulled that out of his ass.

Joe Weisberg: It’s getting hairy. It’s not good.

Joel Fields: It is, and we like that. It’s becoming problematic. Joe and I have this debate, which is in life, truth is a wonderful disinfecting agent, which helps purify every relationship. But in these guy’s lives, its destructive power has to be considered.

Paige regrets having ever confronted them, yes?

Joe Weisberg: I would not necessarily agree with that. She’s obviously in a lot of pain. But she was in a lot of pain before. Now maybe there’s a different intensity to the pain, but at least her world makes a kind of sense.

Let’s get to Martha. The penultimate episode ends with this big moment where Philip de-wigs, and Martha is stunned and not sure exactly what this means. Martha is not in the finale at all, and it’s not even until late in the episode where it’s mentioned that, yes, she’s still alive and still with the program. Why did you wind up structuring it that way?

Joe Weisberg: First, we like the word “de-wigged.” It’s a good word. And we find that it’s the same way we tried to do the big reveal with Paige in episode 10 rather than the finale, moving things around from their expected places just feels better to us. Things start to feel more real when they’re not falling into the expected dramatic slot.

Sure, I get that. But the finale ends on a cliffhanger, and there’s this question of whether he’s doing this because he has to kill her but wants to let her see his real face first, or if he’s doing it to make her trust him. Lots of different things could have happened there, and there’s essentially no follow-up to that in the finale. I’m just wondering if there’s a specific dramatic reason why you didn’t want to do that?

Joel Fields: For what it’s worth, we felt that the follow-up in the finale was him killing Gene, and telling Elizabeth that he hoped it would take care of the situation, and her asking the question of whether that would hold for Martha psychologically. That at least was what was in our heads. Among the things we’re talking about in the writers room now, although we have in our minds how we pick up that thread, how specifically, in terms of the first scene back for her story, are we going to pick that up, where are we going to be at, and what’s that going to mean for them.

Joe Weisberg: I don’t know if Joel will see this the same way, but sometimes you’re very deeply involved in these stories in a certain way, and you can be caught off-guard in a certain way. At least for me, when he de-wigged, it didn’t even occur to me that it might be preparation for killing her. I was caught off-guard by that response from a number of people in the audience. That surprised me.

Joel Fields: I would say I was not as caught off-guard, because everyone’s been waiting for him to kill her. But to me, I think the answer is to say he doesn’t, and he didn’t. I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say if Philip’s going to kill Martha, we’re going to probably show it.

But that gets to a larger question I want to ask about this season. You had a lot of plates spinning this year, and some of them you left alone for quite a while, while others spun the whole season. We haven’t seen Kimmy in quite a while, for instance, when for a while this season, that was the worst thing that Philip was dealing with. Marcus and Lisa vanished for a while and came back. How do you decide how to balance all those stories, and how do you realize when it’s maybe too much story – not so much for the audience to follow plot-wise, but just for it to all track emotionally?

Joe Weisberg: We have a thing in our head that we try to have their life match all of these things going on operationally. It never occurred to me until you started saying it was too much, that maybe it was a rationalization. But what we’ve been telling ourselves is, in their real spy activities, these things come and go. An operation heats up, it cools off, the way their schedule works is that somebody could be in their lives for an intense period and then you don’t see them for a while. So it felt, to us, natural.

Joel Fields: And these things are also somewhat based on need. They sought out the Stealth information when Baklanov, through Nina, said, “Without these photos, I’m nowhere.” Suddenly, they had to start pushing again on that operation.

But Kimmy, in particular, a big deal is made when Gabriel tells Philip, “You’re going to have to see this girl every week for a verylong time.” And that hasn’t come up in the last batch of episodes.

Joe Weisberg: To us, he’s seeing her, but we’re not showing it.

Joel Fields: We’re choosing to show it when he got the critical information.

Joe Weisberg: For example, Charles Duluth is an agent of his, and he has regular check-ins with his agents. There’s a stable of agents that we just don’t show, but that’s part of their story.

Joel Fields: In our heads, that’s in the web series, Alan.

No, the web series is Gaad attacking the mail robot.

Joe Weisberg: There’s a bunch of web series at this point.

Joel Fields: There’s also Martha at home cleaning.

Joe Weisberg:: At the point when the web series start to sound much better than the TV show, I think we’ve got a problem.

Sandra asks him this, but why exactly is Philip both going to est and going to the advanced sex seminar? What need does he have that he’s getting out of that?

Joe Weisberg: This is one of our favorite stories For us, the desire and need to go to est is pretty much what he told her: something touched him, and interested him, and he’s not sure what, but he wants to go back. I think the choice of the advanced sex seminar is because in some barely conscious way, he’s able to connect that a lot of the strange things in his life have to do with sex. If I were to try to get into his not very conscious and not very self-aware mind, he would look at that list of six or seven graduate seminars, and see there’s one about sex, and he would look at all the honey traps he runs, and the flashbacks he had to his own sex training, and it would be easier for him to get up into his almost-conscious mind that there are problems in that part of his life and pick that seminar.

And how much strife is this now going to cause between Philip and Henry that Philip is about to become Sandra’s best friend?

Joel Fields:(laughs) That’s going to be a tough day if Henry finds that out.

I ask you all the time if Stan’s ever going to get another partner, and he hasn’t. So now he’s running this operation on Oleg, by himself, and we don’t find out for sure until the finale that he’s been trapping Oleg this whole time, because there’s no one he can confide in. Similarly, we never know how much of what Nina is telling Anton is sincere and how much is her just running the mission she’s been assigned. Philip and Elizabeth can confide in each other, or in Gabriel, but you have these other spy characters running around, and you have to leave it up to the audience to figure out what their true intentions are.

Joel Fields: That’s one of the really interesting things about the show. In a way, it’s a reflection of life. Ultimately, we all have to determine whether people are being sincere or not. We can show some of that when we can show it, dramatically. But in other place, the audience, like some of the characters, are going to have to go on faith until the truth is revealed, such as it’s revealed.

Joe Weisberg: It’s interesting with Nina, because in season 2, in the writers room and actors and everyone having to do with the show, nobody really agreed whether she was being sincere in different relationships and what was going on with her. There was great disparity there. But at least in the writers room with Nina this season, there’s agreement that we all know what’s going on with Nina.

Is it a good thing if there’s as much ambiguity as there was in season 2, or do you run the risk of each viewer watching a different show?

Joel Fields: I don’t know. Josh Brand said early in the room, “Ambiguity is good, confusion is bad.” That sounded pretty good to us.

Joe Weisberg: I would normally think you could veer very easily into confusion, because it seemed to work for Nina. Somehow, people found it interesting. It just worked with that character. I don’t think you ever could have sustained that with Philip or Elizabeth.

While Paige is calling Pastor Tim, Philip and Elizabeth are watching Reagan deliver the “evil empire” speech. That speech is coming at the end of a season where they’ve done, even by their standards, some pretty heinous things. Philip hasn’t slept with Kimmy yet, but he’s still manipulating this teenage girl. They kill Betty, they kill Gene the computer guy, they fold Annelise up into a suitcase. Was that intentional that you wanted to paint them in a darker tone before they get up to that speech so people might go, “You know, Reagan had a point”?

Joel Fields: As you talk it through, what comes to my mind is that look of utter shock and incredulity that Elizabeth gives to Philip when she hears Reagan call the Soviet Union an evil empire. “How could this monster heave those words into his mouth about us?” Thinking of it as you give that list, it’s pretty ironic.

Joe Weisberg: I am willing to go on the record in saying, I do not think the Soviet Union was an evil empire.

Joel Fields: That was Joe who said that.

But was it an intentional thing to specifically up the game in terms of the nefarious things they were doing and the kinds of people who were being hurt?

Joel Fields: To the extent it was intentional, it was subconsciously intentional. That was not part of our conscious architecture of the season. But now that you mention it, I wish it had been.

Joe Weisberg: We have our assistants come up with a list of the murders Philip and Elizabeth committed each season. It’s just a surprise to us. We don’t really consciously know how much worse things are from season to season.

Joel Fields: But it did spike in season 3, it’s true. But when you talk about what’s consciously and unconsciously planned, Joe and I also talk a lot. We plan overtly, and we also try to make room for the Jungian unconscious mind in the process. That clearly is at work in this.

Joel Fields: Yeah, and it impacted her. Which is rare for Elizabeth Jennings.

Joe Weisberg: It may be that our sense of bad is changing. In the first season, when she shot that security guard, that was back when they hadn’t done so much bad stuff yet. We really suffered with that, or when they poisoned that kid, we couldn’t believe we were having those guys do that. We have become somewhat inured ourselves, so maybe we have to up the ante for us to feel it ourselves. We have to have them kill an old lady with her own pills to make it feel so bad.

Joel Fields: There’s another thing at play, too, which is a chicken and egg. I don’t mean to say it to belittle it, because it’s part of the global part of the show, too. They’ve also, in their minds, done all those bad things because Ronald Reagan is the evil empire guy, even though he hasn’t said it yet. In their view, he’s launching a real offensive to destroy the Soviet Union. That much he’s made clear. So, yes, things are going to get a lot darker.

Joe Weisberg: (laughing) Yeah, what about the bad things he did, Alan? Why don’t you bring those up?

Ronald Reagan is not a character on your show. He exists only on the television.

Getting back to Nina, was it challenging to write for a character who was so far away from the others for an entire season? Did it turn out to be easier or harder than you expected?

Joel Fields: I would say it was not hard. That story was pretty well-broken in our heads. For better or for worse, it unfolded as planned. It all felt pretty good to us.

When we spoke in December, you talked about playing a long game with this story, and John Landgraf rewarded you with a renewal. Having told the story this season of bringing Paige into the fold, how much longer do you think the series can run?

Joel Fields: I think there’s still plenty of gas in the tank for us in terms of story to explore. I don’t think we’re in a position where we can yet say, it’s exactly five, or exactly seven, seasons. One thing that has surprised us season to season is the pace at which story unfolds. We have a lot of story we’ve talked about, but even as we are breaking season 4 in the writers room, and people are going, “Oh, that’s an episode 4 story, or an episode 7 story,” we keep reminding them that whenever we say that, although our stories tend to unfold as planned in terms of what happens in what order, we tend to surprise ourselves in terms of when those stories fall.

Joe Weisberg: It’s a very hard question to answer in the middle. That Paige engine could keep going or kind of sputter out and be replaced by something else. Just very hard to feel completely.

When I was on the set that day, Keri told me that this was a really hard season for her. She felt that Elizabeth was really being the bad guy in the family, and that was tough on her. In a lot of my early reviews, I wrote about how the show’s sympathies seemed to very strongly be with Philip about the Paige situation, only for commenters to insists, “No, they’re giving us Elizabeth’s side, too.” How do you feel like the emotional balance played out over the season as far as you were concerned?

Joe Weisberg: For us, we didn’t feel that we struggled to balance it. We felt very sympathetic with Elizabeth’s point of view and where she was coming from.

Joel Fields: Not to speak for Keri, but I remember that day, and more specifically, I remember a lot of our conversations with Keri. And I think there was a moment over the course of the season where she started to feel very differently about Elizabeth, and started to really feel not only not like the bad buy, but that this was all part of a mother’s act of love towards her child.

Around The Web

Join The Discussion: Log In With

"‘The Americans’ producers on season 3: ‘It may be that our sense of bad is changing’"

By: rafanadel

04.23.2015 @ 3:31 AM

Did that just happen? I’m completely calm. Martha lives. Paige is BIG trouble. Stan has his job. They now have someone to blame about planting the pen. Gene. I really did not know that was him till I read your column. Makes sense to kill him. So Martha has no worries????. Good job Alan Great show

By: Shan

04.26.2015 @ 3:28 PM

I’d like to think even back then that an investigation would give at least a bit of side-eye to any suicide note written on a computer as opposed to a handwritten one.

As it is, we may well see that it all starts to unravel when the investigation finds he’d just had lunch or a haircut or anything else that someone who’s about to take their own life probably wouldn’t do just beforehand.

By: rafanadel

04.23.2015 @ 3:31 AM

Did that just happen? I’m completely calm. Martha lives. Paige is BIG trouble. Stan has his job. They now have someone to blame about planting the pen. Gene. I really did not know that was him till I read your column. Makes sense to kill him. So Martha has no worries????. Good job Alan Great show

By: JJ

04.23.2015 @ 3:43 AM

“Joe Weisberg: I am willing to go on the record in saying, I do not think the Soviet Union was an evil empire.”

And there it is, the reason this show just fails to get an audience. He could be totally right or wrong. But it does not matter because (as people keep getting bashed for waving the flag) for a lot of people it is us versus them and to even take the side of them shows a lack of loyalty and pride in ones country that is totally unforgivable.

I for one love this show and do not mind being labelled a traitor by those who were probably a reincarnation of Betsy Ross, but this show has an Anti-American problem and it needs to fix it. Give the good old boys a few wins would not hurt, I mean it is not totally unreasonable since they won in the end.

By: bob

04.23.2015 @ 5:59 AM

completely agree. I don’t know if they were joking, but it does not read as a joke. People do not like Russia. We like the people and feel bad for them, but the Soviet Union was evil and it was an awful country. They killed 20 million people!

I also like your comment that they should show Stan and the FBI guys getting some wins. The way that all of the Americans (and this season, even some other countries) are such dupes and simpletons to the KGB has to be holding it back from finding an audience. I can see the Martha character or the occasional person they set up as pathetic (like Kimmie) being duped, but the season started with Liz (110 pounds soaking wet) beating the crap out of two FBI guys.

If Russia had such competent people in the 80’s we would be all speaking Russian in America.

By: Guest

04.23.2015 @ 7:42 AM

Agree they’re making the KGB guys “too good” (especially if you compare them to the present-day spies who got caught in 2010 and inspired the show), but I think there’s something Walter White or Dexter-ish in their evil “competency”. I.e. it’s a TV show that picked a slightly different villain to root for.

And Soviet Union – well depends on how you look at it. In the 20s and 30s it was likely one of the most evil regimes in existence (mostly evil to its own people). But 60s, 70s, 80s – I agree with Joel, it was less so. No better or worse than, say, China who the U.S. befriended in the early 70s. Remember, Khrushchev went to the 20th Congress of the CP and publicly denounced Stalin, back in 1956. Said the guy killed millions of people and had a cult of personality. So there was indeed a bit of retrospection that took place where frankly the regime became “less evil” than before. If look deep enough you’ll find quite a few problems with internal evil in every large country or civilization.

Doesn’t mean the Soviet Union was a great place. But the world is not as black and white as politicians (for a good reason!) try to paint it to get their point across.

By: Really???

04.23.2015 @ 9:38 AM

What are you all talking about? Stan scored a huge win in the finale. And this show is not anti american at all, it is just more realistic, we are so used to be painted as the good versus them, the most evil thing that may exist that we believe it to be really true. The good are really good and the bad are soulless monsters. Nobody likes the soviet union and for a reason but things are never as black and white as some politicians/journalists would like us to believe.

And the writers are just following history. But again, Stan scored a huge win! Thanks to him, the FBI got to arrest a fake defector and he’s got Oleg, a major player and son of a powerful Russian politician, to betray his own country (the exact thing Oleg tried to get him to do for Nina last season and he together with the rezidentura failed miserably).

You need to see the bigger picture people. The victory scored against the Afrikaaners was in accordance with History, Reagan was on the wrong side of the fight then and even managed to turn members of his own party against him on that question (his veto was overturned by democrats AND republicans) regarding the cold war in general, the West won and Stan is there to remind us of it. It’s a realistic show (well, more realistic than most of its kind) not a soap with one dimensional characters and simplistic morality, the kind Reagan fed the world (Good vs Evil) during his address to the National Association of Evangelicals (the speech we hear at the end).

By: SlackerInc

04.23.2015 @ 11:47 AM

I did not think Weisberg was joking, and I think that was really cool of him to say. “REALLY?”, I agree with most of what you posted, but you say “Nobody likes the soviet union”. I went there in the Gorbachev era and I *did* like it.

But sure, I know I’m part of a small minority, but this is a premium cable show. There is plenty on the tube for the jingoists and the commie-haters. For people to get exercised about this show, and want it to be neutered to give it broader appeal, makes me crazy. Were people saying Vic Mackey should become a kinder, gentler guy, more like a cop on “Law and Order”? Give me a break!

By: eiganvalue

04.23.2015 @ 1:24 PM

RE: audience – I have no access to marketing data but my opinion is that the show is too smart for the part of America that can stand the violence of the show and the show is too violent for a large portion of the smart American audience. My wife and parents and friends love the spy stuff but they prefer the “cleaner” violence of a James Bond movie. This show explains the real emotional toll it takes to kill over and over again even in the light of doing what’s right for the Motherland.

What’s ironic to me is that half of this show is about the FBI perspective on the cold war and yet until last night, there has not been one arrest (I can not recall any FBI arrest since the show started).

By: dlj

04.23.2015 @ 2:56 PM

It’s too late for the show to have a course correction… the ratings are going to stay bad for however long it runs.

The crimes that Philip and Elizabeth commit are particularly challenging to the audience because we know it’s all for nothing. Even the mentally troubled communists hanging around can’t get overly excited, considering the end game.

The show probably should have done more over the past three seasons to highlight how paranoid the Soviets/Russians were (and are). Elizabeth would be a little more sympathetic if it was evident that she felt the Soviet situation was desperate.

To the extent it’s just a regular, back-and-forth spy game, it puts her and Philip in a position where they murder innocent people for minuscule gains (if that) as part of a relatively stable stand-off.

The protagonists fight for a lost cause, but without an underlying romanticism. That’s not an appealing formula for most people, though I enjoy it despite the flaws.

By: Jake

04.23.2015 @ 3:11 PM

@SLACKERINC Did you go to Prague? East Berlin? Vilnius? Not to minimize your personal experiences, but are we really getting nostalgic about the USSR now? I don’t think you need to be a “jingoist” to believe that the Iron Curtain was tragic and that communism in Russia was a failed experiment. Most people on the left acknowledge that today.

If anything, I think by showing how morally ambiguous the Cold War was, the show has been very successful at illustrating how corrosive the “enemy of my enemy is my friend” approach to foreign policy can be. Reagan’s support for the Contras, the mujahideen and apartheid South Africa were misguided at best, morally reprehensible at worst. As Weisberg says, it makes you somewhat sympathetic to Philip and Elizabeth’s motivation, if not their methods.

I would also agree that the show’s main barrier to entry is the violence, and not the politics. There is no Tarantino-esque stylization with this show. The unpleasantness is ratcheted up to an extreme and is not leavened with dark humor like the Sopranos. It can be extremely uncomfortable to watch at times, which is what makes it effective but also a turn-off for many people.

By: Dave I

04.23.2015 @ 4:14 PM

I think there are two ways to look at that comment. First, to say the Soviet Union was evil seems like it is to portray the whole union of countries as evil. The government did some horrible things, but one could argue so did the U.S. I think mainly though, it was about that sort of a blanket system. If you take a step back, or a step closer, the “Soviet Union” is a nominalization. Within that are the people and not all were bad, not all were good. It is more complicated and layered than that, especially when you look at history and the motives and portrayals of things that guided the actions of people from both sides of the Cold War. Hence, Philip and Elizabeth are not entirely villainous despite their horrible actions, nor are they entirely sympathetic.

Second, I think it was perhaps said to be diplomatic. Regardless of what you feel, it is probably not in good form to call a whole nation (or in this case a network of nations) an “evil empire.” But again, looking at it through the lens of history, it becomes easier to see things in shades of gray and not black-and-white. So I can see why they would present it as such. The Soviet Union and their history present some serious atrocities, however to label it all “evil” is perhaps only seeing part of the picture. I also think if they are going to be portraying two Soviet spies, it is helpful to be able to view it through their eyes and not as villains from an evil empire, even if they are not at all saints.

-Cheers

By: john

04.23.2015 @ 5:34 PM

Anyone who thinks this show is somehow trumpeting the virtues of the KGB, communism, or the USSR simply has not been watching this TV show very closely. Seriously, I don’t even know how you can say that with a straight face. Phillip and Elizabeth have done something horrifically evil in every single episode. The victims are almost always good people, doing nothing wrong, and most of them are Americans.

By: 3hares

04.23.2015 @ 7:31 PM

I assumed he was simply rejecting that kind of rhetoric. “Evil” is a supernatural word. He might disagree with everything about the way the USSR was run but not call it an evil empire like something out of a fantasy novel where it’s run by an evil wizard.

By: Blake

04.24.2015 @ 12:58 AM

Stalin was “evil.” As an evil dictator, he’s kind of underrated; he was our ally but he was about as bad as Hitler. Beria was “evil.” There are other individula examples.

The USSR, in the 1980s, was not “evil.” It was too big and too disorganized. Gorbachev was about to bring glasnost and perestroika. Sure, the USSR did some bad things in international relations, but so did the US: ask a Nicaraguan or Chilean. I don’t want to get into comparisons here of which was worse internationally — maybe the USSR was worse, but it’s a matter of degree.

There are plenty of Americans who are uncomfortable with anything other than a “we’re good, they’re evil” assessment, and that’s why the ratings are bad. For those of us who can handle shades of gray, this is the best show on TV.

By: Krolin10

04.24.2015 @ 3:54 AM

Nah. The age of people that have strong feelings about the Cold War aren’t in the target audience for this show. It’s not having huge ratings probably because it hasn’t become a “thing” yet. Remember Breaking Bad had great reviews but didn’t become the cultural phenomenon that it was until people wanted to be “in the know” with the show. It’s part of this non-sense need to be up on pop culture. The Americans might never get a big audience, just like Hannibal might never get a big audience…but it has nothing to do with the politics of the show or the content. It’s just a niche show and that’s that. Personally I’m glad that I don’t wake up every day to some new blowhard’s article about how Show X is the greatest thing ever and you must watch it or you’re less of a person if you don’t (The Wire).

“Not to minimize your personal experiences, but are we really getting nostalgic about the USSR now?”

Yes.

By: Ludmilla Drago

04.24.2015 @ 3:03 PM

You call him a killer. He’s a professional fighter, not a killer. We are getting death threats. We are not involved in politics. All I want is for my husband to be safe, and to be treated fairly. You have this belief that you are better than us. You have this belief that this country is so very good and we are so very bad. You have this belief that you are so fair and we are so very cruel.

By: Shan

04.26.2015 @ 3:33 PM

Reagan himself changed his mind about calling the Soviet Union an evil empire, at least publicly.

“The question about the “evil empire” statement came near the end of a walking tour of the Kremlin grounds and fabled Red Square, with all its memories of celebrations of the Bolshevik Revolution and May Day parades of Soviet military power.

Explains His Position

Asked if he still considers Moscow to be the seat of evil, Reagan answered, “No.” Surprised, reporters asked why.

Reagan hesitated, leaned his head to one side and thought a bit. Soviet leader Gorbachev tried to prompt him. “Are you happy with that concept?” he asked in Russian. The President then responded by saying that the phrase belonged to an earlier time.”

By: Steve K

08.04.2015 @ 3:44 AM

Another thing to consider, besides the “not an evil empire” comment, is that the show is telling a story primarily from the perspective of Phillip and Elizabeth. That requires, if it’s going to be authentic, the writers to be able to empathize with the characters. To me, while I’d like to hear some evidence to back up claims that Reagan was “evil” too in March of 1983, I completely understand why Elizabeth would think that, and not necessarily need to have the sort of evidence it would take to convince me. Likewise, Reagan was operating with similar, but opposite assumptions when he declared the USSR an evil empire, and didn’t necessarily care to regard the mitigating evidence that some of you have been discussing above.

I don’t particularly care what the political ideology is of the writers, as long as they can represent all the main characters’ motivations fairly and give them equal space. One of the strengths of this season is that everyone, Elizabeth and Phillip and Stan, each found consequences for their actions knocking at their doors, in the form of a daughter refusing to look the other way, and a wife who might not have known there was an affair, but was impacted by the effects of it, respectively.

To me, the spy craft is fun, though like Dexter mentioned above, it is also tinged with that sense of corruption, because of its effects, making the characters and viewers question the morality of it. Even more interesting is how the characters are dealing with the ramifications of their actions. It’s why this season was by far my favorite. I liked the show before, but this is the season when I have begun to recommend it to other people.

By: Really???

04.23.2015 @ 9:23 AM

I really did not expect Philip to kill Martha after he de-wigged, I understood then that he had made a choice and that killing her had to be the very last resort and the follow-up to that storyline in the finale also made sense to me, that’s why I love this show so much, it’s so smartly done, nothing is too obvious, nothing is in your face, it’s like watching life naturally going on. Regarding Paige, I’m really disappointed, turning on her parents like that, how can she trust anyone with such a secret. I understand she’s hurting but still, she’s lost points in my book. Well, I don’t like Pastor Tim anyway so maybe he will do a good scapegoat for some other character I care more about.

By: SlackerInc

04.23.2015 @ 11:48 AM

I did totally think Philip’s “de-wigging” was most likely a prelude to killing Martha, just as Elizabeth’s revelation of her real name and country of origin showed that the old lady was doomed. It’s fascinating that the showrunners were blindsided by that fan reaction.

By: Sarabi

04.23.2015 @ 12:46 PM

In response to Slackerinc:

I think that the difference in those two scenes (Elizabeth revealing herself and then killing the woman as opposed to Philip’s revelation to Martha in an act of honesty and maybe even regret) shows us the ever-present differences in Philip’s and Elizabeth’s views on the world and their “jobs”. They certainly are on the same side, but the ways they are living through it diverge more and more as the show progresses. And that is why season 3 was such a delight to watch!

By: SlackerInc

04.23.2015 @ 12:50 PM

I can see your point, but then Elizabeth was hesitant to kill the old woman but Philip was more matter-of-fact (“she was in the wrong place at the wrong time”). And although he felt bad about it, Philip killed a busboy previously after getting “de-wigged”. I think the showrunners should have anticipated that the scene might play that way.

By: Sarabi

04.23.2015 @ 1:02 PM

Well, one could say that the busboy and the old lady were people Philip (and Elizabeth) did not know and that’s why he didn’t question the steps that had to be taken (i.e. murdering them), but he has an emotional attachment to Martha, so I doubt he would think the same way about ending her life.

But I agree, it’s weird that it didn’t occur to the showrunners that Philip’s de-wigging could be seen as omnious.

By: Dave I

04.23.2015 @ 4:40 PM

A few differences between Martha and the others.

Philip is both more compassionate that Elizabeth in general, at least in some regards, and in particular likely to be more compassionate to Martha. As Sarabi mentioned, they had no emotional connection to Betty or the busboy. I also think he has leverage with Martha. There was no way to be sure Betty or the busboy would not talk. However, whenever given the chance to leverage people into staying silent Philip and Elizabeth seem willing to take the route less murderous. With Martha, Philip clearly wants to protect her AND is using their relationship (and perhaps the possibility of danger/violence against her family by the KGB if she lashes out) as leverage to keep her from running away or turning him in. If he had to kill Martha to protect his family, I suspect he would do so. However, I also think that is an absolute last resort for him.

-Cheers

By: Col Bat Guano

04.23.2015 @ 10:03 PM

Given the obvious peril they’ve placed Martha in this season, it’s baffling to me that they wouldn’t imagine that Phillip removing his disguise wouldn’t seem like a threat to her to the audience. While Phillip might have some leverage over her, she certainly could turn the tables on him and if not him, then the Center would certainly have no problem getting rid of her.

By: bmfc1

04.23.2015 @ 11:26 AM

Maybe I’m a pussy but I’m really tired of seeing them kill innocent people, many of whom work in the same field as I do, and not get caught. Imagine Gene’s friends and family forever thinking that the person they knew was a spy. I enjoy the show and think that the acting is incredible but I hope that when the series ends, it’s with these two murderers in jail.

By: SlackerInc

04.23.2015 @ 12:51 PM

I hadn’t thought about that part, but aside from it being horrible to be killed, you’re right that it’s kind of horrible for Gene’s reputation to be trashed that way.

By: Really???

04.23.2015 @ 1:39 PM

I totally agree with you and I don’t think we are pussies personally for thinking that way but again, I don’t see it in terms of good and evil but more like in terms of what needs to be done to ensure the mission’s success. To appreciate this series, you need to put yourself in the perpetrators’ shoes which does not mean for a second that you approve of their actions. That being said, I really feel for all these innocent victims, like that poor faceless guy working on his car who got crushed by Elizabeth to clear a position for Lisa (for some reason, that is one of the kills that shocked me the most). Gene is also a real victim here, I’m so sorry for him. What Philip did was despicable but I like this show for daring to show us the ugly reality of such a job and the humanity of those performing it without sugar coating any of it.

By: Dave I

04.23.2015 @ 4:50 PM

That does not make you a pussy. I do think that makes you human, or humane.

There is a balancing act to all of this. On one hand, Philip and Elizabeth are doing terrible, terrible things. To sugarcoat that or whitewash it is to miss the moral dilemma, similar to Breaking Bad or The Wire or any show with anti-heroes I suppose.

On the other hand, as Really??? noted, to enjoy or appreciate this show you do most likely need to see things, really step into the perspectives, of the Soviet characters. Especially Philip and Elizabeth. They have been brought up as Soviets seeing America as a nation that is trying to get the upper hand to destroy them. They are doing, in their mind at least, necessary evils for the greater good. While a rationalization, the alternative in their mind (and they were not alone) was possible nuclear war and almost mutually assured destruction, if not annihilation.

That is the great conflict, at least to me. You see them doing terrible things for some perceived greater good. However, you also see innocents killed over what was a possibility we know never materialized. You also see a growing sense of weariness, and I would argue humanity, in Philip and even Elizabeth. You see it for their victims, you see it in how they have to view a world for their children.

Not to just echo Really???, but I truly appreciate this show showing the ugly reality of these situations and showing both sides sympathetically, especially from their characters’ perspectives, without layering it with sugar coating or an unnatural layer of sentimentality. This all feels very ragged and emotionally charged to me, precisely because it IS very ugly and the fact it is effecting the perpetrators of this ugliness, and because they are at conflict over how much choice they have.

-Cheers

By: Dave I

04.23.2015 @ 5:06 PM

Another interesting point I think this brings up is the question not only of what ultimately does happen to Philip and Elizabeth, but what SHOULD happen. They have done terrible things, yet they have done so for reasons they thought were justified. That conflicted nature also extends to me as an audience member. I have the same reaction to what they have done that Philip does, and as an American I am not sympathetic to the plight of Soviet sleeper agents, yet I also cannot feel good about them being found out and I know enough about history to not view things as inherently black and white or right and wrong. It is a weird dichotomy to hold while watching this show.

-Cheers

By: bmfc1

04.23.2015 @ 5:47 PM

Great comments. Thank you.

By: SlackerInc

04.23.2015 @ 11:53 AM

Great interview, Alan.

Friendly though I’m sure the interview was, I’m glad you didn’t just throw softballs. I thought this was a great season of television, but there were a couple problems that you identified: too many storylines, and a failure to finish the scene with Philip de-wigging in front of Martha.

Oddly enough, as I was watching I got caught up in what they were showing me and didn’t even remember that I was expecting to see that scene play out–until Philip was in the computer guy’s apartment, when I was like “oh yeah, waitasec…what happened with Martha?!?”.

It’s also very interesting to learn that last year, the writers were not all of the same mind as to where Nina’s true sympathies lay, but this year they are all on the same page. Combining this interview with the showrunners podcast, then, it is clear that they are writing Nina to be expressing sincere feelings to Anton, not mixing in truth with lies in order to play him.

By: Floggy Bottom

04.23.2015 @ 1:11 PM

I want to thank the showrunners for getting the usage of the Commodore 64 correct (not being snarky). It’s rare TV or movies get these things right.

By: Extraneous_Ed

04.23.2015 @ 2:01 PM

Anyone else feel like Phillip was about to tell Elizabeth, “I don’t want to do this anymore”, and then watching her absorb Reagan’s speech he knows that it’s impossible. I feel like Phillip would actually agree with Reagan, and that was his point.

By: 3hares

04.23.2015 @ 7:32 PM

I don’t think he’d agree with Reagan, who was arguing to build up nuclear arms. Wanting to get out of the game isn’t the same as wanting to join Reagan’s fight, whatever he imagines that might be.

By: Extraneous_Ed

04.23.2015 @ 8:45 PM

I don’t mean he’d agree across the board, I should have been more specific. I think when Reagan calls the Soviet Union evil, he has this feeling that Reagan is right. He’s not a true believer anymore. He feels what he’s doing is evil and he can’t justify it anymore.

By: jizzmo2003@yahoo.com

04.23.2015 @ 2:21 PM

When they kill Pastor Tim it will be THE event to drive home to Paige just how real this stuff is.

By: andrei

04.23.2015 @ 4:05 PM

Killing Pastor Tim is too pat, and would absolutely destroy Paige. Between the soft-sell they told her at the reveal (“we collect information for our country”), and Tim’s leftish tendencies and his pastoral role as a confidante, there should be some path to keeping him alive but quiet. Whatever that path may be, however, it’s going to require a constant razors-edge balancing act.

By: xactomundo

04.23.2015 @ 7:52 PM

I agree with Andrei. Kill Pastor Tim and they will have to kill Paige also (not out of the the realm of possibility for Elizabeth). They will have to turn Tim in service of turning Paige.

By: Steve

04.26.2015 @ 1:46 AM

I am not certain that Pastor Tim will stay a good guy. I cannot rule out the possibility that he enters into a sexual relationship with Paige. That would create a nice parallel with whatever develops between Philip and Kimmie. I wonder if the reason for Tim and Alice not having kids–unusual for a minister and his wife–is so the show can ultimately say that their marriage was strained by her inability to bare children.

It would be very interesting if Paige wound up being the one who killed Pastor Tim, perhaps because he decided to ignore the sanctity of the confessional and turn Philip and Elizabeth in. Then Paige would have to go to her parents to cover it up. That could be part of the process in which she ultimately turns.

By: KC

04.23.2015 @ 7:50 PM

I really admire the way this show portrays religion. Paige’s faith is taken seriously, not as an invitation to mock her. The pastor seems sincere, and the church generally comes across as wanting to help other people. It’s a nice change of pace from what’s normally seen in popular culture these days.

By: xactomundo

04.23.2015 @ 8:00 PM

I really hope we get to see a bullet put in the brain of Philip and/or Elizabeth by the end of this show’s run. Or even the flaming tire treatment. They really are awful characters. I realize they are the anti-heroes, but I have much less interest in seeing them succeed than Walter White or even Tony Soprano and I still enjoyed seeing them go. Philip and Elizabeth should end the same way(yes, Tony died at the end).

By: Col Bat Guano

04.23.2015 @ 10:08 PM

While I love the Nina character, I’m finding it difficult to care about her story after this season. I can’t see anyway that she could get reintegrated back into the D.C. world without some huge plot manipulations. There’s just no way she would be trusted again regardless of what she does with Anton. At best she gets released for a job as a file clerk in Siberia.

By: Brian S

04.24.2015 @ 10:08 AM

Honestly, until the closing sequence with the phone call and Reagan’s speech, this was an incredibly underwhelming season finale. It’s one of the few times “The Americans” has disappointed me.

By: Really???

04.25.2015 @ 8:17 PM

Another thing I loved about the finale is the final scene, the close-up shot of Elisabeth’s face and her expression while listening to the “Evil Empire” speech, you can see the anger and that her resolve is getting stronger than ever, she really takes that speech at heart, it is personal, Reagan is insulting her people. I can’t wait to see how this will play out next season as this happens when Philip is expressing reverse feelings. He may still believe in the cause but he can no longer do what they are doing, that’s what he was trying to say , he can no longer kill innocent people. The price tag for fighting for the cause is just too high.